J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > St Peter's Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Church of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill, Rome 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Church of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill, Rome’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 58 Verso:
Church of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill, Rome 1819
D16260
Turner Bequest CLXXXVIII 57 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Marbles’ bottom centre left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Thomas Ashby identified this sketch as a view of Sant Sabina on the crest of the Aventine Hill.1 Turner has drawn the church from the level of the river, at a location near the Porto di Ripa Grande. The sweeping vertical strokes in the foreground are probably masts of ships docked in the port. The inscription refers to the fragments of marble which could still be seen on the Marmorata, the quay on the left bank of the river, used in ancient times for unloading marble.
In the bottom left-hand corner is an unidentified architectural detail.

Nicola Moorby
September 2008

1
Thomas Asby, unpublished notes, Turner Bequest Archive, Tate.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Church of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill, Rome 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2008, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-church-of-santa-sabina-on-the-aventine-hill-rome-r1139772, accessed 19 April 2024.